Panzer Grenadier board game tried (The Road To Berlin)

Had a game with recently acquired Panzer Grenadier game the 'Road To Berlin' module and a decent game it is too.
A successor to Panzer Blitz/Panzer Leader and comparable to White Star Rising but with bit more meat on bones.
Very easy to pick up with not too many special rules/exceptions to remember (main one we forgot was that units can have to shots including Tanks within Efficiency rating - all Germans and Soviet Guards in this module).
I also have the Beyond Normandy game which I will have to try out.
A whopping 75 scenarios of varied size included so a vast amount of replay value.
The counters are what I would describe as functional compared to White Star Rising or Hill Of Death but correspondingly easier to read than WSR in particular.
Couple of quirky armour ratings for some AFVs in my opinion (such as Su100 having 3 armour vs T34s 5 ?) but only minor quibble really.

Another bunch of recent board Wargame acquisitions.
I have also bought quite a few painted figures as well of late (but no pics) mainly via EBay but with a full painted French 1814 Army and a SYW Prussian force currently being completed for me (I simply do not have the time to devote to painting at present)

Panzer Grenadier Deluxe: Mairy scenario played

Played another game of the new Panzer Grenadier rules (I note the Battle Group bit has been drooped) against Stephen.
He chose the Mairy scenario from the rule book which pits a Regular German force against some defending Regular Yanks.
The Krauts are forced to enter on only three points on table edge (two roads and a section of wooded ridge, the roads are kindly lined by 'bocage' equivalent foliage) with 4 Platoons of Grenadiers in Sd251 (I declined to use these) 4 x Panthers and some support in form of 81mm Mortars.
They have one less HQ than normal to simulate some historical command difficulties.
The Ami have 2 x 76mm and 1 x 57mm ATGs with an M10 and 4 (?) Platoons of GIs all setting up hidden (with one in Ambush) in the town and surrounding area.
They have a single stonk of off-board Artillery in General Support.
This of course means the Krauts will generally stumble into enemy fire before seeing anything to shoot at.
In our game I put my Stubble Hoppers (for you Sven Hassel fans) on foot as thought it too risky in the Hanomags.
On my left the Ami called in their Artillery as the first of the foot appeared.
Stephen of course duly rolled a double 6 for effect causing me to lose a full Platoon Dispersed in one fell swoop !
I decided to bring the Panthers on through the wooded ridge.
This entailed a risk of bogging/breakdown.
Two came through unscathed one was halted for a turn and the unlucky fourth suffered a Damage result.
On my right I brought on more foot sloggers who inevitably got shot up as well.
The Panthers were engaged by a 76mm from Ambush (meaning they could not observe it to fire back) for several turns.
These Panzerwaffe also failed to activate for several turns (5 out of the 12 turns played !!) meaning my thrust through the middle was largely ineffectual.
This meant brunt of assault was borne by the Soldaten whose losses mounted despite killing a few Ami (I had a lucky double 6 roll with my Mortars on a built up area).
I did manage to detach one Panther which engaged the M10 on my right brew it in short order.
It became apparent around turn 10 that I had insufficient numbers of Grenadiers left to take the town of Mairy (a 3 section area of which Germans were required to capture 2 sections).
The Panthers whilst proving pretty tough to deal with when standing off where not capable to digging out the Ami Infantry in the buildings.
So we called the game on turn 12 of the 14 scheduled).
Great stuff again with this excellent set of rules.




Grenadiers about to die under Artillery Bombardment on left road

 Mirror advance on right roadway

 Panthers emerge from ridge in front of Mairy

 Attack develops on right but is held up by fire from a farm

 Zenith of Panzer advance !

 The Yank defenders firmly in control of town

Stuck on left road

Couple of games played....

Having just turned 50 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) on 25th I managed to get in a couple of board wargames


First up was a scenario from White Star Rising

Scenario from the Cobra expansion had US forces attacking to capture a town from Germans.
This one went to the wire with Germans just managing to hold one of the four town objective hexes for a narrow win.
US failing to activate either of its two formations in penultimate turn was main factor.

Next up was a scenario from Combat Commander

Scenario pitted US Paratroops against the equivalent Fallschirmjager in Normandy.
Both sides pretty much mirror image of each other (each fielding 3 Leaders 9 Squads 3 half Squads and slightly different support weapons).
Fjr in Attack posture and US in Recon mode.
Burden of attack on Germans and they got caught in a couple of heavy firepower attacks losing several squads.
This despite the US losing an MMG and an HMG to breakdowns !

Best of the birthday cards I received

Liberty Roads face to face

Got a game in with my Dad (first in ages) trying out Liberty Roads by Hexasim a game covering Western Europe in 1944/45.
Several options where to invade not just Normandy in this one. Some interesting chrome in form of Support Markers (which cover special events/units such as Tiger Bttns, Air Support etc), Hitlers Influence track (ie his dwindling favour can affect German reinforcements and support allocation), FFL Track and Op Fortitude (limiting German moves until Op ends).
Several types of beaches to invade (each type rated for defence level from 1 - 5) and Invasion areas (vary in numbers of beaches, size of initial and follow-up waves and available support).
There are specific support counters for Invasions for both sides in addition to the 'normal' supports.
The game has some rather different systems in particular units lack any ZOC (expect when tracing Supply) which makes things pretty fluid and dangerous !
The CRT is odds based but in addition to Attrition loss results there are Attacker and Defender Tactical Results (yielding Retreat and Exploitation results among a few others).
Usual effects of Terrain on combat odds but also sometimes on these Tactical Outcomes along with Support Marker effects and sometimes Elite unit status.
Overall a very nice game only downside we found were small counters (needed for non standard over-sized map footprint) and the need for 6 random draw 'cups' for the Support marker  (2 sets each) FFL counters and German Kampfgruppe counters all of which are usually drawn randomly.
Elite units are denoted by a tiddly medal icon on counters which was sometimes hard to discern although we could usually guess which particular Divisions were so classed.
The rules being converted from original French are a tad hard to understand at times but nothing we could not sort out (the Examples of Play booklet was indispensable in this regard)

In our game I invaded in Brittany as Allies and was quite successful in Invasion and was pushing south but having a hard fight against a line of Panzer units anchored on Avranches despite having cut-off and destroyed two SS Pz Divns (the lack of ZOC in effect). We managed to completed 4 turns out of the 9 for D-Day scenario(full Campaign game goes for 24 turns) and thoroughly enjoyed the game.


Allies firmly ashore at their 3 beacheads in Brittany. They later pushed East and South (Brest, Lorient and St Malo all fell later despite becoming Festungs)

Field Of Glory: Napoleonics - 1814 again

Managed another game in between shifts at Stephens today.
We played FOGN again (mainly as my army was ready to use from last game) in 1814 period again but facing a slightly different French army (more units due to a few less Veteran and Superior types).
Terrain a lot kinder to the French who got to attack again (ie no terrain fort for Prussians).
As we are getting the game rules into our over stacked little brains the action flowed much quicker today and we managed to fight the game to a conclusion which was a French Victory. after concentrating against and crushing my right wing.
No time again for a full report and will once more have to let the photos do the talking.